Saturday, January 16, 2016

New Assistive Technology for Kids with Dysgraphia Results From Channeling Frustration into Inspiration

Update: Fundraising Successful. Parents Turned Inventors Say Their Free App for Students with Dysgraphia Now Supports Algebra Students too.

ModMath 2.0 also allows students to print their assignments or send them electronically through e-mail, text or dropbox.

San Francisco - Two year back, a free app called ModMath quietly debuted in
the Apple app store. The developers, a husband and wife team from San
Francisco, were not part of the tech scene. They weren’t trying to come up with
the next SnapChat or Uber. And they didn’t care about funding from Kleiner
Perkins.

What they did care about was helping their son who was
falling behind in math because his handwriting was so illegible,even
he couldn’t read it. Their son who is dyslexic also has dysgraphia, a
condition that often accompanies dyslexia. The condition makes it difficult to
write legibly and impairs the ability to get thoughts down on paper.

Prior to the invention of ModMath,
the only option for kids with severe dysgraphia was to dictate to an adult how
to work through each problem and have that person write down exactly what he or
she said. “This wasn’t a great long-term solution, as I suspect my son
wouldn’t be too happy to have me as his college roommate,” says co-developer,
Dawn Denberg, mother of a bright 13-year-old boy, who perseveres academically
despite his learning disabilities.

The app, which works on the iPad, is called ModMath. It eliminates the need for
students to write out math equations long hand. Think Excel, but without a
calculator to do the calculations. Kids use the touch screen and on-screen
keypad to set up and solve problems. They can work through complicated math
concepts, including multiplying multi-digit numbers, long division, regrouping
and adding fractions with unlike denominators.

These parents, turned app developers, ponied up $12,500
and hired a computer engineer to create a beta version. “I’d spent countless
hours searching for a technology that would help our son and it simply didn’t
exist,” says Denberg. “It was a stretch for us financially, but giving up was
not a viable solution And if our son was having this problem we figured there
must be thousands also struggling.”

They were right. We get e-mails from parents with all sorts
of disabilities, including ADHD, Autism and dyspraxia,” says Denberg. “They all
felt just as lost as we did,” says Denberg. To date, the app has
been downloaded by more than 100,000 people and gets rave reviews from both
parents and educators. “We received a steady stream of letters thanking us for
creating ModMath. But an equal number beg
for additional features like a keyboard that can support algebra students,”
says Denberg.

After tapping out their personal resources on the beta
version, they decided to take ModMath to
the next level by turning it into a full-onnonprofit charity. “We
entered into a fiscal sponsorship deal with a nonprofit called MarinLink and
received a grant of $10,000 from the Christopher’s Way Foundation.

Additionally, they launched a
Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $20,000 to pay for upgrades.
“Our beta version was puttogether on a shoe string budget,
so it was a bit-glitchy,” says Denberg. “We really shook the tress to make this
upgrade happen.”

The new an improved ModMath with all new bells and whistles
launched last month. “The new version works for exponents, square roots as well
as complex algebraic equations, which means we can now reach a much wider group
of kids.”

Are the Denbergs committed to futher improving
ModMath? “Absolutely. We ran out of money to do anything further for
free, but we decided to start charging a nominal fee for the next upgrade,”
says Denberg. “We’re a nonprofit, but we’re trying to avoid being a negative
profit,” says Denberg.The next update, to be released in March, will include a
feature that allows student the option of uploading worksheets. “It will be a
huge time saver as kids now have to input each math problem by hand,” says
Denberg.

2 comments:

I cannot thank you enough for creating this app. I literally found it via search engine (Yahoo!) today after spending the majority of the day researching homework tips, local coaches, and assistive technologies for my 13-year-old son who also suffers from dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD.

Luckily I was familiar with and recognized his symptoms early on so I took him to be evaluated at age seven. He was diagnosed and IEP was established that including intervention for math and reading as well as occupational therapy. As a result, he has excelled in school -- until now. He has done so well that he no longer has an IEP, but only a 504 accommodation that requires his use of a computer. I was told he would have access to a program for math, but that never materialized. Like Henry, my son usually cannot read his own writing so no one else really can either. He has trouble forming the letters properly and keeping them organized; his mistakes and frustration are almost always attributable to these issues. (In lower grades when he didn't have to show his work, he simply did the problems in his head and wrote down the answer.)

The school year in Phoenix has just ended, but I am more than confident that with ModMath, my son will go from almost failing this past quarter back to the A-B math student he once was.